Miami • Saturday, April 3, 2010

About

From Orlando Sentinel, April 4, 2010:

“Up and Coming” is an odd name for a tour by Paul McCartney, who now can accurately sing “When I’m Sixty-Four” in the past tense.

But you’re as young as you feel, as the saying goes, and apparently Sir Paul, at age 67, feels younger than a lot of rock stars a fraction of his age. In front of roughly 40,000 fans on Saturday at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium (let’s see the kids draw that kind of crowd), the ex-Beatle played for a solid two hours and 45 minutes, more impressively mining his formidable catalog than in his 2005 arena show in Tampa.

There was a little of everything: Good potential for a contact high. Beatles Rock Band images on the big video screen. AARP members storming the barricades just like in the ’60s only with digital cameras, not protest signs. A ukulele-powered version of “Something.”

Although he mixed newer material into the set, most notably the woozy, vaguely psychedelic “Highway,” off his experimental project, The Fireman, McCartney mostly reveled in the nostalgia. He was charming, though not overly chatty, introducing old favorites with recollections about his storied past that were well-known to virtually everyone in the audience.

He reminisced about his first trip to Miami, to perform with the Fab Four on the Ed Sullivan show. “It was like paradise,” he said. “We were kids from Liverpool and we’d never seen anything like it. And it’s still cool.”

Also still cool: That timeless Beatles music, performed by the one guy on the planet most qualified to do it. (Sorry, Ringo.) For the record, McCartney still sounds terrific, with a voice flexible enough to turn on a dime from raucous to honey sweet in a set that hit all the obvious targets (“Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road,” “Hey Jude,” “Get Back,” “Yesterday”) as well as a few surprises.

McCartney’s uke-strumming on “Something” was the most pleasant one. In an arrangement borrowed from his performance at George Harrison’s 2002 tribute concert in London, the whimsical sing-along in the song’s first verse segued into a spot-on rendition of the familiar studio version.

Although the members of McCartney’s economically constructed four-piece band were anonymous enough not to even warrant individual introductions from their boss, the musicians tackled the songs with flexibility. It can’t be easy to translate the studio grandeur of “A Day in the Life” to a concert stage, but the group offered a capable approximation on Saturday.

McCartney hitched that song to “Give Peace a Chance,” but didn’t add too many other new wrinkles to the much-loved material. “Eleanor Rigby,” “Two of Us,” “Paperback Writer” and others were delivered faithfully to the faithful.

“Do you wanna ‘Get Back’?'” McCartney asked the crowd before launching into the song of the same name.

Well, you came to the right place.

Last updated on November 21, 2020

Sun Life Stadium

This was the 1st and only concert played at Sun Life Stadium.

Setlist for the soundcheck

Setlist for the concert